More Human Than Human
by The Walking Stranger
Summary: His first day at Yokai, Tsukune meets not only Moka, but befriends another student; A loner who was on the run. An enigma with a horrific past and deep secrets. A demon's 'son' with a hidden agenda.


**A/N: This is not the result of the poll on my page. This just something I have wanted to do for a very long time.**

**The orginal title for this was 'Demon Speeding' but the one i ultimately decided on seemed more fitting.**

**XXXXXX**

"Tell me something; did you think this through **_at all?"_**

_"I don't need to think it through, Mercer," _Tsukune said. "Because it is something I **have **to do!" The half-human glared at the disease-spreader before him. Axel Mercer was, at the moment, under the guise of a tall and lean Western teenage boy with long black hair that went a little past his shoulders, slightly pale skin, and bright orange eyes that seemed to eerily glow. He could assume a perfectly identical likeliness to anyone he... "consumed" as he always put it; he owed that ability to his 'father' Alex. Mercer was possibly the most frightening thing Tsukune had ever seen, and the most dangerous by far, but he still saw the walking virus as a friend.

"Why do anything?" Mercer asked in his strangely predator-like voice, the same one that was the reason he was vastly feared, similar to the way Manhattan feared his 'father'.

"Mercer, haven't you ever... felt a... strong connection towards someone?" Tsukune asked. He was secretly desperate to avoid using the term 'love' with the other Moka only a few yards away.

"I have already told you the tale," Mercer said without changing his expression or stance at all.

"So you gave up on everything!" Tsukune shouted, trying to get Mercer to see just where he was coming from.

"No. Not at that moment, no," Mercer answered in his usual, level-headed voice. "It was when I came to be... whatever I am. _That_ is when I gave up on the subject know you are referring to. At least for a while."

Tsukune dismounted his bike and grabbed his friend lightly on the shoulders. "You have to understand that there's no other way here, Mercer!"

Mercer looked at him carefully and silently for what seemed like years. Finally, he inhaled deeply through his nose and spoke once again. "I don't know what you believe happens, but let me assure you right now: dying hurts. A LOT!" He then stepped aside, clearing the path for Tsukune to ride through the tunnel. "Just a forewarning."

He simply stood there, hands behind his back, and watched the first friend he'd made since the second quarantine ride off into the cylindrical eyesore. He heard the Inner Moka step up next to him. He didn't bother turning his head to look at her as they spoke.

"I thought that only _you_ were allowed to kill him."

"I **am. **That's why I stopped you from beating him to death in that warehouse. Oh, speaking of beating him to death, I think I have the answer and _reason _why he can't stand to look at you. Remembers the time you said right to his face after he was nearly killed by blunt force, for what I think was the tenth time that week, that you... what was it? Oh yeah, 'feel **nothing **for him'?" He looked over to her with a sly smile on his lips. "Perhaps **that **is why he wants the other Moka back. She also doesn't try to kill him everyday."

The silver-haired vampire looked taken aback slightly, not used to having someone get the better of her in any conceivable way. "Well you're the one who almost ate him in front of the entire school."

He looked away and stared something that wasn't there, and smirked. "Whatever."

Mercer spared her a sideways glace and saw she was staring at him pointedly.

"Aren't you supposed to be running after him?" He said.

"Shouldn't you?" Moka retorted. "He **is **your friend after all. But where you serious about... giving up?"

His face made it clear that he was now in deep thought. He looked down for a second and then grasped something off of his green blazer; a single strand of hair; its color gave the impression that it belonged on a rainbow. Rather than linger on this subject, which he really did not feel like discussing, he tossed the hair aside and reverted back to the major problem.

"I'm pretty sure your... infatuation outweighs my... friendship, for want of a more intellectual term." He took in a sharp breath and cracked his neck several times by thrusting it side to side. He then began talking mostly to himself. "Damn it. I'm too hungry for him to die."

**XXXXXX MANY, MANY MONTHS EARLIER XXXXXX**

Tsukune looked out the window of his dorm room into the starry sky. It was just now fully night. His thoughts were stuck on that other strange student he had encountered earlier that day. He had looked so sickly and... animalistic in some ways. He had had a predatory look in his eyes, his eerie, apparently glowing orange eyes. Their run-in had been a strange one to say the least.

The human hadn't even heard the stranger coming; he had simply felt a hand come to a gentle rest on his left shoulder, and he had turned his neck and head to meet the gaze of those somewhat frightening irises. The stranger then did something... rather perverse; he licked his lips slowly. He the removed his hand from Tsukune and stepped back a pace. He then said in a loud whisper, "Finally, a human..."

Before his statement could be elaborated on, that strange, silver-haired version of Moka came out of nowhere and delivered a solid kick that sent him flying. By the time Tsukune's senses returned to him and he looked to where the kick had sent him, the other teen was already gone. However, it was not too long before he saw him again; not a few hours earlier, Tsukune had been returning to his room, and saw that the stranger was to occupy the room just a few down from him.

Those three words that stranger teen had spoken had been burned into Tsukune's mind. What had he meant by them? Was he also a human here in a school for monsters. For some reason, the lifted Tsukune's spirits. If that were the case, then he wasn't completely alone. Just as a hopeful smile crossed his lips, it flickered away when he heard heavy footsteps outside his door. Curiosity got the better of walked over to his door and opened it. The footsteps emitted from the left and he looked over to see the very same person he was thinking about not moments ago. The teen seemed to put all his weight into every step he took, he swayed to the left when he used the respective foot, and it was the same for his right. He was looking at the ground, lost in thought by the look on his face, and he was walking towards Tsukune. He didn't acknowledge the human's presence at all, and he most probably would never have if Tsukune hadn't said something to him just as he walked directly in front of him.

"Hey," Tsukune said awkwardly. The stranger stopped in his tracks, about two feet past the door, His head raised so that he was no longer looking at the ground, and he turned his neck and head to look over his shoulder at Tsukune. They locked gazes. The unknown teen didn't blink, so Tsukune was the one who broken the tension by looking away for a second.

Then, for the second time, Tsukune heard that raspy, predator-like voice. "It's best if you keep your distance. Bad things tend to happen to people who get near me." And with that he looked to his front once more and continued to walk off down the dark hall.

Again, curiosity got the better of Tsukune's judgement and he took off after his possible fellow human. Just as he was about to grasp him by the should, something wrapped around his outstretched wrist. In the dark, it was hard to make out what is was at first, but gradually he adjusted to the lack of light. It was a tendril. A black tendril had shot out of the stranger's back and stopped Tsukune's arm from getting any closer to him. The now obviously non-human looked over his empty shoulder at Tsukune.

"Fine." The stranger said, seeing that Tsukune was looking at the black tentacle with awe. "I'll submit to this, even though I don't like it..."

Twenty minutes later both teens found them selves in the forest not too far from the grounds. Tsukune had found the silence from his acquaintance slightly awkward, but he didn't speak up about it. He was too intimidated by him. Mercer, as he revealed to be his surname, which he had taken from his apparent adoptive father, gave off an aura more frightening than Inner Moka. And now he was simply staring at the moon above the trees.

"You know," Mercer started without breaking his gaze with the moon. "I've always wondered something..." He finally turned to look at Tsukune. "Why is it that we only follow the advice we receive from _ourselves_?" Mercer asked sardonically. His right arm then began to slowly become immersed in a strange black goop. It seemed to harden and build upon itself until his arm was thicker and decked with spikes, and his fingers were now foot-long talons of shiny silver that glistened in the moonlight. He raised his mutated arm so that it was parallel to the ground with his new talons pointed directly at Tsukune. He began walking forward, and Tsukune, instinctively not wanting to get skewered or impaled, began backing away. It was about three steps until he felt his back press against a tree. He had nowhere to go, but Mercer kept advancing. Tsukune could feel the cold sweat journey down from his forehead down to his cheek as three of Mercer's talons pressed into and lightly pierced his left shoulder. Tsukune could feel the warm crimson liquid that allowed him to continue living run down his upper arm as Mercer's lethal claws continued to dig deeper into him. They weren't far in, but it still stung like wild fire.

"You should know..." Mercer started in his calm, calculating voice; it was as if this action of pain-inflicting had zero affect on him. "... I don't need these to kill you. I could tear you in half with one hand. I could throw you half a mile." He looked directly into Tsukune's eyes, which were beginning to saturate with tears from the pain. The human somehow managed to take his mind off the pain coursing up and down his arm and across his chest to look at his assailant, Mercer's face made it clear that he was deep, possibly lost, in thought. After what seemed like hours, Mercer withdrew his silver hand-daggers from Tsukune, and his arm returned to normal after the blackness of it seemed to melt into him. "but I haven't intentions of killing you. Yet."

"Really?" Tsukune asked with a strained voice, gripping his bleeding wound.

"Yeah." Mercer said simply. "If I kill you, I will have to start running again, and if I start running again, _he _might find me, and do to me what he did to my father. And besides, i like it here. I can use my father's gifts without drawing too much attention." Mercer looked over and saw the human was completely lost in what he just said. Not that it mattered, he had said enough and made his points clear; he wasn't going anywhere, and the human wasn't going to be his dinner. Still...

"Let's make a deal." Mercer said with a sly smirk. "You and me. And let this be... persuasion." He grabbed Tsukune by his uninjured shoulder and dragged him away from the tree he had pinned his back to. Looking art him with the same smile, Mercer grabbed the tree by its side, and without any effort, pulled it clean out of the ground, roots and all. As Tsukune looked on, bewildered, Mercer through the tree like a javelin. Even though he had put minimal effort into it, the oak soared through the air like a rocket and eventually disappeared.

"Okay!" Tsukune said with a nervous smile, shaking slightly. "Let's make that deal!"

"Wonderful!" Mercer said with a soft grin, as if they made just agreed to meet for lunch. "here's the gist: Nobody kills you except me. We'll go to details later."

"Sounds good." Tsukune knew that arguing here would probably result in a lot of pain for him. "But can I ask one thing?"

"Shoot." Mercer gave a dismissive wave of his arm.

"What exactly are you?"

Mercer cackled softly. "People back home called us monsters obviously. But if you want something _specific, _a religious woman once called me a demon..."

**XXXXXX**

**A/N: I thought about using the real Mercer, but that was a little too... for want of a better term, awkward. So instead, I made an OC. Originally, I was gonna use him in a Highschool DXD story, but I very quickly lost interest in that...**

**I am aware that I have done next to nothing to explain who Axel is and how he came to be, so I have some of that explained in chapter two. As for details of him I didn't put in... He is a very damaged person. He feels alone in the world now that Alex Mercer is no longer around. Axel, at times, hates himself and everyone around him; he is prone to violent mood swings. While not sadistic, he enjoys being in control and showing others just how powerful he is and how easily he can destroy them.**


End file.
